Laparoscopic spay vs. traditional for older dog?

[stryder]

Hello!

Do any of you have experience with spaying an older dog? My 8-year-old Welsh Terrier came into my life after her breeder decided to retire and re-home her. Lucky me!! She’s had 3 litters. She came to me as a chunky monkey. We’ve worked hard the past two months, and she’s lost 3 lbs, but still weighs 20 lbs. Vet would like to see her at about 18. We’ll eventually get there, but I really want to get this done before her next cycle.

Surgery is scheduled for this Thursday. I wasn’t aware that laparoscopy was an option, and I don’t know if our vet clinic offers it. There are surgical clinics near me that do. I’ve been reading up on this now, and while keyhole surgery offers a faster recovery, it seems it’s not for every dog. I’m concerned that having more fat to work through would make it harder to do, and the vet could end up opening her up anyway.

I know keyhole would cost a little more, but that’s not a consideration.

Any advice? TIA!

[Sandysmom]

It’s been a while since I had a dog spayed but iirc the incision wasn’t but a couple of inches anyway. Now here’s what my doctor told me about my “spay”. Since I am older, my uterus was bigger so laparascopic surgery wasn’t the best option. Might be the same for your older dog especially since she’s had 3 litters.

[DiamondJubilee]

I had my giant breed dog (just over a year and 100lb at the time) spayed laparoscopically (and had a gastropexy done at the same time) and I was super happy with how her spay went. The vet did say she had to make her incision a tad larger than she wanted as her uterus was larger, but I’m talking an extra cm. So it was 3cm instead of 2cm. If I had done her traditionally, she would have a very large incision and my girl is super active so it wasn’t the way I wanted to go for her.

She healed sooooo fast for the spay (her pexi was a different story) and it was so tiny. I didn’t even notice it after a few days, it healed up that quickly.

The picture is 2 days after surgery

[Warmblood1]

Laparoscopic all the way. Skin/incisions are painful and most post surgical complications with dogs come from issues with the incision. If they can’t do the surgery laparoscopically, they will make the incision larger but even with a lot of fatty tissue, they will very likely be able to do it.